Abstract

This essay examines the rhetorical education that late-nineteenth-century women received at California State Normal School. The article complicates Gregory Clark and S. Michael Halloran's claim that during the nineteenth century, rhetorical theory and practice shifted from an oratorical to a professional culture by considering how gender, class, and region affected this transformation. Building on the research of Beth Ann Rothermel, this analysis also reveals that although experimentation concerning women's gender roles occurred in the northeast, it was more sustained in the West. California women generally faced fewer gender constraints than did women in northeastern state normal schools and were provided with more opportunity to learn typically masculine discourse practices.

Journal
Rhetoric Society Quarterly
Published
2011-03-31
DOI
10.1080/02773945.2011.553767
Open Access
Closed

Citation Context

Cites in this index (3)

  1. College English
  2. College English
  3. Rhetoric Society Quarterly
Also cites 8 works outside this index ↓
  1. Reclaiming Rhetorica: Women in the Rhetorical Tradition
  2. Fitzgerald , Kathryn. “The Platteville Papers Revisited: Gender and Genre in a Normal School Writing Assignme…
  3. 10.2307/359077
  4. Gray , Patricia H. “Life in the Margins: Student Writing and Curricular Change at Fitchburg Normal, 1895–1910…
  5. 10.1080/07491409.2009.10162387
  6. Lindblom , Kenneth , William Banks , and Risë Quay . “Mid-Nineteenth-Century Writing Instruction at Illinois …
  7. 10.1057/9781403979100
  8. Local Histories: Reading the Archives of Composition
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